


You will believe in me, And I could never be ignored

by Destinyllama



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Assault, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Horror, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Paranoia, Prisoner Neglect, Psychological Horror, Trans Jonah Magnus, Trans Jonathan Fanshawe, check chapters for content warnings, medical neglect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destinyllama/pseuds/Destinyllama
Summary: “Because the occult is my life’s work. I’ve been gathering statements on the esoteric… why, before I met you, even. Besides the accounts you’ve gathered for me, what experience do you have? I would say, Dr. Fanshawe—hypothetically, of course—that you likely have no idea what I’m doing, cannot possibly grasp the forces involved, and have absolutely no way of stopping me. You are completely out of your element.”Jonathan grits his teeth and leans forward, very tempted to lunge over the desk. The grinning, uncannily composed man before him would look much different with a hand on his throat and nothing in his lungs.“But—” Jonah nonchalantly picks a piece of lint off his robe, “—if someone were to offer you a position that would put you considerably closer to the monster you’re trying to slay, Dr. Fanshawe… Perhaps you might learn something useful about him.”-----Their connection is something deep, as much a part of Jonathan as his own organs.Dr. Jonathan Fanshawe takes Jonah Magnus's offer for employment at Millbank Prison after previously refusing it. Jonathan discovers truths about the world that he would have preferred to leave undiscovered.
Relationships: Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23
Collections: Associated Articles Regarding One Jonah Magnus





	You will believe in me, And I could never be ignored

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to Edoro and Autodidact for betaing this! They both gave me excellent suggestions and did a wonderful job editing this.
> 
> This is DARK, as is typical of The Magnus Archives. There will be emotional/psychological manipulation on the part of Jonah and in-depth discussion of a 19th century prison. It will not be pleasant. PLEASE CHECK THE CHAPTER CONTENT WARNINGS. Content will change from chapter to chapter.
> 
> I am very excited to be writing this, as I find the relationship dynamic of jfan/jonah FASCINATING.
> 
> CW: Insomnia, Hallucinations, Assault, Body Horror, Dissection, Gore

He can't get those eyes out of his head.

It's difficult enough being a surgeon when one doesn’t have insomnia. His nightmares are making it downright hellish.

It's always those eyes. Always those fucking eyes. Often in his dreams, he's demonstrating a dissection, surrounded on all sides by students. The students are faceless, their features blurred by Jonathan's own poor memory—he’s never been good at recognizing faces, after all—but he feels their gaze upon him. It's… one of curiosity. Scholarly fascination. His scalpel slides easily down the cadaver's chest, like he’s cutting paper and not human skin. Cold, clinical fingers move to pry the skin… and then he feels it. Something in the observation turns malicious. He looks up, always anxious, always suddenly struck with paranoia, and he recognizes the face of one of his observers. He shouldn’t be able to recognize it, because it’s all eyes. Glistening, bulbous, and Paris green, dotting every space of skin, on the neck, too—and, Jonathan suspects, infesting every inch of the menace’s body.

Those bulging spheres are all pointing at him and, despite their inhuman tinge, he feels them recognize him, too. They, to his horror—always to his horror—are not dead or detached. They see his _fear_ and are _reveling_ in it. He is suffering for this figure; this silent observer, and it does nothing but _watch_. It is curious about him. Jonathan knows it views him as some kind of experiment; a specimen trapped behind glass and preserved in formaldehyde, for this monstrous thing to poke and prod at. What haunts his nightmares views Jonathan Fanshawe the same way Jonathan Fanshawe views the cadavers he dissects.

Jonathan wants to rush the thing. Wants to plunge his knife so deep into his tormentor that he can feel it rip through muscle and intestine. But he never does. He is pinned, unable to do anything other than continue his demonstration, and so he continues. His fingers pull away at the skin of the cadaver, scalpel cutting through subcutaneous fat and muscle. There is something deeply wrong with the body, though he cannot place it until its outer layers are stripped away. As he splits the corpse open with horrible, violent squelching, with the awful crack of bone, he sees them, _and they see him_. A thousand irises of every size and color, a thousand silent judges are inside, where the organs should be. Every bit of the body is infested: it's corrupted, it’s rotten with Jonathan’s sins.

The body is that of Albrecht von Closen.

Albrecht’s ribs shatter into obscene peaks of sharp pink and white. His cartilage is broken and mangled, as though hit with some great force Jonathan cannot see. Thousands of moths pour from Albrecht's chest, a dense cloud of dark, flapping wings, and eyes, iridescent eyespots that gleam green and blue and purple in the light. And the thing in the crowd watches.

The creature is Jonah Magnus, and he looks onward, untouchable, as Jonathan is reminded of his complacency in the monster’s schemes.

Night after night after torturous night.

Until Jonathan is worn to the bone.

* * *

Dr. Jonathan Fanshawe decides to take a temporary leave of absence from his post at St Thomas’ Hospital when he starts feeling like the cadavers are watching him while he’s cutting them open.

He is performing an anatomical demonstration to a theater of students. This time he is awake, and he knows he is awake because as he pins his apron to his waistcoat he sweeps his eyes over the crowd sitting in the wooden gallery above him. He sees the faces of the students clearly, all neat and clean-shaven, idly chatting with their peers or taking sketches of the body before dissection. His fellow surgeon just barely catches his attention, and Jonathan sees from his face that he’s concerned. Apparently, Jonathan has been staring into space for just a moment too long. He flashes his colleague a nervous yet insincere little smile and lies that he is fine. They can start.

His hand shakes while the knife is in it. An assistant pulls the white sheet back from the operating table, revealing the subject. This body is a woman, somewhere in her late thirties, who apparently died of tuberculosis. He doesn’t ask the hospital where they get their bodies, as he’s unfortunately had the displeasure of dealing with resurrectionists himself. He doesn’t want to know where this woman came from: doesn’t want to know her name, doesn’t want to imagine who her family was. Jonathan just wants to teach without noticing the unfocused way her glassy eyes stare up at him.

He attempts to start the anatomical demonstration with the usual Y-shaped cut to the body’s abdomen, but his scalpel slips over the mottled skin. He pauses, takes a breath, ignores the whispers in the crowd, and tries again. This slice is jagged and not deep enough, because Jonathan expects there to be a million staring orbs mixed in with the globules of this woman’s fat. The other surgeon whispers a horrified curse at his lack of technique, but Jonathan can’t hear him, because Jonathan is staring at the dead woman’s eyes. He’s certain that he can see them staring back.

He quickly excuses himself from the operating theater and through the side door and into the morgue. He has a full nervous breakdown in the dark supply closet, surrounded by bottles of formaldehyde.

So he takes a temporary leave of absence after apologizing profusely to his superiors, at least until his insomnia is managed well enough for him to hold a knife again. Jonathan is unsure if his insomnia will ever be managed, but the hospital board would never take his claim of a supernatural ailment seriously. Jonathan isn’t even quite sure he takes it seriously himself. He’d like to think that genuine instances of the supernatural are rare, but he always feels watched and Jonah is _always_ in his nightmares.

Worse yet, some part of him feels like he deserves the curse Jonah Magnus has inflicted upon him. He was the man’s accomplice for years: gathered stories for him wherever he could, gave the man his company, his time, his _love_ , even. He is unsure where along the line Jonah turned rotten, but something about the man is deeply, horribly wrong. Jonathan hasn't seen Jonah since before he sent his last letter—the one that was supposed to sever their connection. So much for that. Why did he think he could sever anything?

Their connection is something deep, as much a part of Jonathan as his own organs. They're held together by the viscera of years of friendship. Blood vessels full of secrets, full of that awful desire to know the most elusive and terrible things of the world fork between them, feeding that dependency to each other. This monster that haunts him is his own creation; a growth, a tumor, a _teratoma_ crafted from his own flesh that now grows upon him and haunts his every moment both waking and asleep.

And like a teratoma, it must be _cut out_ before it _consumes_ him.

He packs a dagger in his suitcase. He tells himself it's for self defense.

* * *

Jonathan rents a room in Edinburgh for a few weeks under a false name. He stays far away from the usual accommodations he uses when he visits the city, away from his friends in the Royal College of Surgeons and definitely away from Jonah’s townhouse on Great King Street. He instead takes a little room in the nicer portion of the Old Town, thankfully far enough away from the workhouses to escape the harsh smell of solvent and liquor.

He finds it very difficult to sleep during the journey north. The carriage he charters stops for meals and at night so that he may lodge in an inn. Always, whether at restaurants or at inns, whether it be the waiter or innkeeper or the coachman or the boy that brings his bags up to his room, he feels scrutinized. 

There’s no reason for it, no way that a lad in a town of a few hundred people knows his sins, but as he turns to watch the lad shut the door to his room for the night, he’s sure he sees the youth sneering at him. He spends the next few hours laying on top of the duvet on the bed in only his nightshirt, tracing the cracks in the ceiling plaster, wondering how the boy knew. 

Jonathan shivers as he mulls over the few minutes of interaction he had with the bagboy. Was it his walk? The way he was dressed? He thought he was dressed as a normal surgeon. He gets up around 2 am to put water on his face from the washbasin on the other side of the room. Jonathan sighs as he looks in the mirror, running his hands over his face. Or perhaps it was the dark bags that had taken up permanent residence under his face. He looks horrible, like he spent the last month decomposing in an East End close. No wonder the lad had been put off—

There is something behind him.

A figure stands there, spotted with a thousand green irises, wet and glistening in the moonlight, oozing putrid clear liquid that swirls and gushes and consumes and JUDGES—

Jonathan whips around, but nothing is there. The washbasin falls to the floor and shatters.

* * *

The Magnus Institute is situated at 15 Ainslie Place on the Moray Estate in New Town. Jonathan still doesn’t know how Jonah managed to secure the building, surrounded by the homes of judges and surgeons and the offices of architects, but he suspects it has something to do with Jonah’s frequent socializing with the Edinburgh elite and his profits from Millbank. Jonathan doesn't especially enjoy the prospect of lurking around such an affluent area, one where, upon his repeated appearance, someone might notice he's out of place or, worse yet, recognize him. Fortunately, the street is empty late at night, and there's a garden encircled by the ring of houses where he can be obscured by the shadow of hedges.

None of the lights in the building are on; Jonathan isn't sure why they would be. Jonah is prone to insomnia and overwork, but that doesn't mean he'd be here at this ungodly hour. Jonathan doesn’t want a confrontation, not yet, but he had hoped to catch a glimpse of the man, for some damned reason. To see that Jonah is not all eyes, perhaps? To verify that the waking world has not been twisted as his dreams had?

The building is the same as it had been when Jonathan came last, on better terms. It’s almost cruelly mundane, all tan brick and wrought iron fence, completely indistinguishable from the buildings that surround it. If it weren’t for the little bronze inscription on the doorway, if Jonathan hadn’t know Mr. Magnus, he wouldn’t find the building remarkable. He chuckles sardonically to himself, feeling the tired ache in his muscles. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

He watches emperor moths flutter around a streetlamp in front of the Institute. They’re larger than they usually are. He stumbles out into the street towards the light, his legs doing little to keep him balanced. One of the moths lands on the side of the iron light post, directly at Jonathan’s eye level, orange fascia obscene against the black metal. Those ghastly eyespots on its wings bore into his sockets; he can feel the pressure of them on his sphenoid bone. And when it flaps its wings, they almost look like they’re… blinking.

The thing flutters away before he can get too close to it, and he’s left with an awful pressure in his sinuses. He takes off his glasses and rubs his temples, and when he next opens his eyes, a crescent-shaped portion of his vision has started flashing and wobbling.

He has a sudden, violent migraine.

* * *

He tries to make his visits to the institute erratic enough that it isn’t obvious that he’s scouting the place, but it’s… difficult. The days have started to blend together, and he’s sleeping at odd times when he can no longer keep himself from collapsing. When he leaves his lodgings—and he doesn’t leave them except for supplies and to survey his mark—he finds that some of those he passes stare at him. They can see very clearly he’s odd; he must look like a laudanum addict, stumbling haggard through the street as he does. He reminds himself that he is dressed like a surgeon, and the Burke and Hare murders had happened only four years before. He hopes that’s why they’re staring.

Jonathan has a rough idea of Jonah’s schedule now; he comes in early to the Institute and is usually the last to leave. Sometimes, when he has books to take home, he’ll have a clerk come with to carry them. The light in what he knows is Jonah's home office (for Jonathan has been in Jonah's townhouse many times before) stays on late into the night, until he finally retires to bed. 

One night, Jonathan is lying in his borrowed bed, listening to the quiet scurry of mice feet somewhere above him—probably in the attic. It’s somewhere in the very early morning—it’s harder to tell the flow of time these days—as he’s been laying in bed, wide awake, for the past several hours. He knows Jonah will be in bed now; he knows the servants will be asleep. He’s started keeping the dagger he brought with him in his coat, and when he puts the coat on, he feels for it in his pocket.

There’s a small street behind Jonah’s townhouse for the stables. It’s fortunately unlit, preventing any stray onlookers from seeing him amongst the shadows. His fence-climbing skills are rusty, but he manages to scramble over the wall and into Jonah’s garden without too much fuss. He creeps up to the back door and tries the handle. Locked, unsurprisingly.. Damn. After a short while of leaning in the shadows, at a loss for what to do and finding inertia easier than fleeing, Jonathan sees movement through the kitchen window. He tenses, but soon finds that he doesn’t need to. A woman, probably a maid and visibly sleepy, opens the back door and walks out carrying a chamberpot. As she goes to the privy, Jonathan slips silently into the house.

The house is completely silent, save for the distant ticking of the grandfather clock in the parlor. All the servants have gone to bed, and the blanket of darkness surrounding him seems to muffle any sound. He creeps into the front hallway and up the stairs, avoiding meeting the eyes of the numerous paintings on the wall as though they could somehow see him if he did. The soft glow of streetlights through the curtained window at the end of the first floor hallway and a small sliver of light under the door to Jonah’s study are the only things cutting through the oppressive blackness. It appears that Jonah is still awake after all. 

Jonathan stays close to the wall, hand trembling as he reaches into his coat to pull out his knife. An odd sort of sharpness overcomes him, and he feels very aware of every sound around him—the shut of the back door downstairs, the clacking of carriage wheels outside. He’s fixated on that sliver of light, where his monster lies. He hears movement from within the study, and he pauses. There is some shuffling, the scrape of a desk drawer, and the rapid beat of Jonathan’s heart in his chest. The moments he spends in the darkness are excruciatingly tense, but after a moment of silence, he begins to move once more. Jonah probably thinks he’s a servant—

The door to Jonah’s office swings open suddenly, flooding the hallway with light. A short figure, obscured by the light and blurred by motion, darts out, and lobs something large and heavy at Jonathan’s head. He discovers it’s heavy because the corner of it jabs right against his forehead and bounces onto the floor. He stumbles backward and only just barely manages to keep his glasses from falling from his face. His vision is swimming, and the hallway is spinning, but he catches sight of the glint of metal in the figure’s hand, drawn up to shoot—

But the gun doesn’t go off. The figure, who Jonathan now recognizes as Jonah Magnus, blinks several times in confusion, then recognition, then irritation. He rolls his eyes and slouches somewhat but doesn’t lower his pistol. At least his finger is off the trigger now.

“Fanshawe… Of course.”

Jonah looks much the same in the dull glow of kerosene as he did the last time Jonathan saw him, over a year ago. More disheveled, yes—he’s in his robe and nightshirt, his hair and mustache askew from a long night of work, but it’s still so bright red it almost hurts, even with the blond and white stripes that have begun to streak it. His pale cheeks are still dotted with freckles that make a man of forty look boyish.

“ _Jonah_ ,” Jonathan spits, hand protecting the sore spot on his forehead.

“ _Jonathan_ ,” Jonah returns in an equally venomous tone, “Could you please… The book I threw at you is actually quite expensive. Could you pick it up for me?”

Jonathan glances down at his feet, awkwardly, a bit stunned, but… picks it up. For the man pointing a gun at him.

“Could you please put the pistol down—”

“Really, Jonathan? Put your knife on the floor and slide it towards me, thank you.”

“M-My—” Oh god, that’s right. He’s holding a dagger. Because he broke into Jonah’s house. To attack him. He quickly does as Jonah says, feeling the ridiculousness of the situation uncomfortably sober him.

“Hmph… Flimsy. I would have expected you to at least bring a bonesaw or something,” Jonah pockets the thing into his robe, "You are _very_ bad at this, Doctor. Have you stalked anyone before?"

"I-I, uh, um—"

"No, I didn't think so,” Jonah tilted his head, “Funny thing, actually, Dr. Fanshawe, when one’s clerks repeatedly see a tall disheveled man lurking around his place of employ and then his servants spot the same man near his townhouse… Well, one tends to take notice.”

Jonathan doesn’t reply. His mouth just stays open somewhat, his expression blank, because he’s realized he’s made a total fool of himself.

"So… What were you planning to do exactly, _Jonathan_ ," Jonah says his name with the same tone as a disappointed parent, "Rough me up a little? Stab me? _Murder_ me?"

"I-I wasn't—"

"No? I'm sure you broke into my house at an ungodly hour for purely benevolent reasons." Jonah lifts an eyebrow. "I didn't want to have this conversation now. I was _hoping_ you’d confront me at a reasonable time—perhaps during the day, hmm?”

Now Jonathan is sure he’s been stabbed instead, because it feels like there’s a rock in his gut. He’s standing there dumbfounded, asking himself _why_ he broke into his friend’s (well, former friend’s) house in a sleepless, paranoia-fueled haze. Rather, why he wasn’t more _prepared_ while doing it.

“God damn it… God damn it…” Jonathan swears under his breath, rubbing his eyes under his glasses.

"There, there, Jonathan. We all do foolish things late at night…" Jonah motions with his pistol, finger fortunately off the trigger. "...Though thankfully not all of us are stupid enough to attempt murder."

Jonathan simply gives Jonah a longsuffering look and wonders whether it's too late to get his knife back. The insufferable little man simply turns and motions with his head towards the doorway of his office, casually, as though Jonathan were a clerk under his employ and not an intruder.

"Care to have a seat in my office so that we may discuss this matter at length, Dr. Fanshawe? Or would you prefer to keep standing dumbfounded in my hallway?"

He follows Jonah into the office, which has always been an impressive-looking thing, fitting for the little dandy. There are a number of books which Jonah prefers to keep here on the large mahogany shelves that line both sides of the room rather than in the library downstairs. Books which—and Jonathan narrows his eyes—appear to have rather old and familiar pages. The walls are painted green, because Jonah is particular about home decor, as Jonah is particular about everything, and there is a large painting of an owl above the man’s desk. Jonathan has never liked how its eyes seemed to follow him around the room.

“My god, Jonathan, you look terrible.” Jonah sits down at his desk, rolling his shoulders. “What have you been doing? Gallivanting through Edinburgh, imbibing the contents of your own medicine cabinet?”

“I, uh…” Jonathan rubs his eye, already irritated by Jonah’s tone, but sits across from the man nonetheless. “I can’t sleep.”

"Ahh, that would explain the bloodshot eyes, then." Jonah folds his hands and looks the doctor in the eye. "...What is your grievance with me?"

"Excuse me?" Jonathan scoffs, "Oh, I have _many_ grievances with you, Jonah—"

"Because if I remember correctly," Jonah cuts him off, "In your last letter to me, you made it _very clear_ you wanted nothing to do with me. 'Consider this the severing of our acquaintance,' I believe you wrote. As you seem to consider an extraordinarily rude letter not enough of an insult and thought it wise to salt the wound by breaking into my house as well, something must be bothering you."

Jonathan purses his lips and scrutinizes Jonah's face. The man has the same smug, unreadable expression he always does.

"...I've been having nightmares."

Jonah rolls his eyes, "How very unfortunate for you."

"You've been in them, Jonah," Jonathan grits his teeth, "Every single one of them."

"I don't see how I'm responsible for what your mind conjures up in the night," Jonah snorts.

"Albrecht von Closen is in them… And there are eyes in him, and, and—" Jonathan stumbles over his words, at a loss for how to explain such an unusual murder, “...You _killed_ Albrecht. I know you did… _something_ to him. You must have. What happened to him… I know it was your fault.”

Jonah pauses and purses his lips. He adjusts the paperweight on one voluminous stack of papers in consideration. The silence makes Jonathan more uneasy than an outright admission would.

“...Let’s say that I did, somehow, gain the supernatural ability to fill a man’s chest cavity with eyes or strike him down from hundreds of miles away—"

“That’s not what I’m—”

“—Then how would you stop me?”

Jonathan’s brows tighten. His eyes narrow. That’s too blunt; it almost sounds like a threat. He exhales as he realizes it _is_ a threat, because Jonah is grinning. As Jonah is a sociable man, he grins often, but he also has the unsettling habit of grinning when he’s angry.

“Because the occult is my life’s work. I’ve been gathering statements on the esoteric… why, before I met you, even. Besides the accounts you’ve gathered for me, what experience do you have? I would say, Dr. Fanshawe—hypothetically, of course—that you likely have no idea what I’m doing, cannot possibly grasp the forces involved, and have absolutely no way of stopping me. You are completely out of your element.”

Jonathan grits his teeth and leans forward, very tempted to lunge over the desk. The grinning, uncannily composed man before him would look much different with a hand on his throat and nothing in his lungs.

“But—” Jonah nonchalantly picks a piece of lint off his robe, “—if someone were to offer you a position that would put you considerably closer to the monster you’re trying to slay, Dr. Fanshawe… Perhaps you might learn something useful about him.”

Jonathan scoffs, unable to believe what he just heard isn’t a hallucination caused by his insomnia, “You’re still _offering me_ the position at Millbank? After this? After what you did to Albrecht? That’s insulting!”

“Insulting it may be, but it is also a _charity_ ,” Jonah says severely, “What I’m offering you, Dr. Fanshawe, is a chance to learn what _really_ happened to Albrecht.”

There’s a horrible prickle on the back of Jonathan’s neck. A pounding in his ears as his heart races. Jonah Magnus has always been a confident, collected individual. Consummately prepared. However, for a man to have his house invaded, to have his life threatened, to be stalked and to react with such inhuman calmness… Jonathan suddenly feels as though he is looking at a cloud and not a person, some projection of humanity that Magnus exhibits merely to keep up appearances. The _real_ Jonah is a stranger to him, a shadowy creature he cannot see and does not know. His friend is gone and has been replaced by this serpent, which lures him into its den and wishes to devour him.

"You're the Devil, Magnus."

Jonah pauses, and Jonathan thinks that perhaps he's finally done it, he's landed a blow on this incorporeal nightmare of a man. But, as Jonah leans forward in his chair, Jonathan realizes his knife has slipped through the mist yet again. The largest, most carnivorous grin contorts Magnus's face. His teeth glint with predatory glee, and there's something wild in his eyes.

"...You know what, Jonathan. I think you're right. I _feel_ like the devil. You barely understand how true that statement is."

Jonathan feels very small. He feels like a specimen, pinned under those vicious green eyes.

"If you're really so fixated on me, Jonathan, then you should accept my offer. It's still open. Come work for me at Millbank and see how devilish I _really_ am."


End file.
